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URBINO AND CAMERINO.
It may well be that it was about this time that Cesare, his ambition spreading--as men's ambition will spread with being gratified--was considering the consolidation of Central Italy into a kingdom of which he would assume the crown.
It was a scheme in the contemplation of which he was encouraged by Vitellozzo Vitelli, who no doubt conceived that in its fulfilment the ruin of Florence would be entailed--which was all that Vitelli cared about.

What to Cesare would have been no more than the means, would have been to Vitelli a most satisfactory end.
Before, however, going so far there was still the work of subjugating the States of the Church to be completed, as this could not be so considered until Urbino, Camerino, and Sinigaglia should be under the Borgia dominion.
For this, no doubt, Cesare was disposing during that Easter of 1502 which he spent in Rome, and during which there were heard from the south the first rumblings of the storm of war whereof ill-starred Naples was once more--for the third time within ten years--to be the scene.

The allies of yesterday were become the antagonists of to-day, and France and Spain were ready to fly at each other's throats over the division of the spoil, as a consequence of certain ill-definitions of the matter in the treaty of Granada.

The French Viceroy, Louis d'Armagnac, and the great Spanish Captain, Gonzalo de Cordoba, were on the point of coming to blows.
Nor was the menace of disturbance confined to Naples.